Broccoli, Courgettes and blurry photographs

There's something very real about this photo. It's far removed from the glossy shots you see in 'foodie' magazines. A little bit blurred even. It's a 'just-come-home-from-the-allotment-and-put-things-on-the-table-tired-now-but-happy' sort of a photograph. I like to help other growers along - so this is definitely a 'you-can-do-it-too' sort of picture.

And there's another thing I'm proud of. This digital snap does NOT illustrate a glut. We've grown just enough broccoli and courgettes (two or three plants) to have some for our evening meals, without getting fed up with them, and without wasting anything.


These were low maintenance plants. Once I'd raised the broccoli in biodegradable pots at home I just planted them out - threw them in with a net over the top, held down at the sides with bricks. I really didn't pay them much attention after that. I can't even remember weeding them. And people say brassicas are really difficult to grow...?

As for the courgettes - it was the same story with them too (didn't need the nets though). No doubt the rain helped. There I was at the beginning of June - worrying about how I was going to water the plot, and in the end - I hardly needed to.


Even if we don't eat these vegetables today (and I don't make it down to the allotment every day - I'm there once or twice a week at the moment) - these vegetables will still be much fresher than the ones we could have bought in the supermarket.

Here's another blurry photograph:

In this one, you can see roughly how big the head of broccoli is by comparing it to the size of my (largish) hand. That's another thing about organic growing. Some people will tell you organically grown fruit and veg always turns out to be smaller than 'conventionally' grown veg. Don't believe a word of it.

Is the food industry 'playing' with our lives? Food Inc.

'Food Inc' (the documentary) is making waves in the U.S. Not least amongst the major 'players' of the food industry. This clip shows a mother who lost her son because he ate contaminated food. She's fighting for new food safety legislation. Lots more about Food Inc on YouTube. See also BBC's Radio 4's The Food Programme for a discussion: Food and Film.

New potatoes with butter - home grown gooseberries for dessert

I'm finally beginning to understand why farmers always seem to be talking about the weather.

If we're going to get serious about producing enough fruit and vegetables to sustain a small household - weather, sunshine, daylight hours, watering and timing are important factors.

Most gardeners I know have already planted out their courgettes, squash, tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers and melons. These are all heat-loving plants. And here in the North West of England we've hit a chilly patch - with lots and lots of rain. When this happens growth seems to slow down or stop...and you start wondering if it will ever start again...

Lettuces and salad plants are alright for a few days in these cooler temperatures as they don't like things too hot. Of course if it rains a lot you don't need to water so often. Wielding a watering can is quite a chore when you have a largish space. I'll have to find a more workable solution for this one. Mulching helps enormously - and I've ordered a long hosepipe today(50 metres).

We started to harvest the new potatoes last week. This variety is a first early potato called 'Lady Christl' and they're really delicious. It is such a simple meal too. Last night we had new potatoes with butter and one organic beefburger each (they were on special offer). A small bag of organically grown new potatoes costs around £2.50.

Our home grown harvest will probably give us about fifty meals for two adults and a toddler. So if we'd bought potatoes at the shops this would have set us back £125. Here is what my order from the Organic Gardening Catalogue looked like:

1 x seed potatoes LADY CHRISTL 3 kg (cost: £6.25)
2 x potato GOLDEN WONDER
1.5kg1 x CARROT Chanteney
1 x PARSNIP Cobham Improved Marrow
1 x LETTUCE Little Gem
1 x CUCUMBER Long White Paris
1 x LEEK Monstruso de Carentan
1 x MELON Sweetheart F11 x Rocket Wild

Total: £25.22 with a ten per cent 'Garden Organic' membership discount delivered to my door:

http://www.organicgardeningcatalogue.co.uk/ (postage free for orders over £25)


Home-grown gooseberries for dessert. It was the first time we'd been able to harvest gooseberries from the allotment. The variety we chose was 'Greenfinch' and they were grown in the partial shade of our large Newton Wonder apple tree. I didn't think they would do so well in partial shade, but they are fine now.

I could have staked the bushes, but I just didn't get around to it in time, so when the rains came I decided to harvest all the fruit, small and large - so the slugs wouldn't get them. I gathered a decent bowlful. If we'd bought the equivalent amount of organic gooseberries (which are difficult to get hold of round here anyway) - this would have probably cost us around £20.00. So that's more or less how much I paid for the two bushes. It's taken two years to get fruit from these. They weren't difficult to maintain - and if anything I neglected them as there was so much else going on around the plot.

So the past three years of sometimes heavy (unpleasant) and often dirty work converting our derelict allotment is finally starting to pay off. But there are some things you just can't buy with money: my daughter's squeals of delight as she unearths her little potatoes and places them carefully in a pot - watching her 'wolf' them down at tea time - no questions asked - her face buttered and smiling...

U.N. World Environment Day (this Friday)

Organic gardeners have a carbon footprint a third smaller than regular gardeners. That's one reason why Garden Organic is urging more of us to go organic in the garden. And if you follow the link on their site which tells you about UN World Environment Day (this Friday) you'll find more tips.

We've done lots of these things already on our plot - including creating a mini pond. And here's the best news - three froglets emerged from our washing up bowl pond yesterday!

This picture qualifies as the WORST photograph on the planet - I've got the best excuse though. My daughter was so excited about the frogs she was jumping up and down on my back at the time. Sigh. Maybe I'll get another chance to do a better one. That's 'reality' blogging for you...

To see the posts with pictures and descriptions of how we constructed the pond - scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the 'mini-pond' section of the archive...

Our tiny, tiny froglet has just emerged from the water and is resting on a stone. Note the subtle ambience created by the curve of our recycled washing up bowl in the background...

A working mum's allotment

Our allotment is pretty but functional. (Although at times like bank holidays we're really glad to be there, instead of sitting in a traffic jam, for example). The bottom line is: we need to produce organic fruit and vegetables that we actually EAT.

We're into our third year now. It's taken a while to get the plot up and running. It was derelict when we took it on. The first picture in this series was taken today. The second shows the plot back in early Spring before the leaves appeared.

Time to take stock of what we've produced so far. Which techniques have saved time and money. What went well. And where we need to improve.

So let's call our reality check 'JOYS AND CONCERNS'. Starting with some JOYS:

1. I haven't bought a single lettuce so far this year, and have been eating them since early March. I've got into the habit of succession sowing and know more about the different types that will see us through the cold seasons as well as the summer. Perhaps we are never going to have to buy any ever again!

I eat quite a bit of salad, and today's supermarket visit revealed that organically grown salad leaves are at least £1.50 per bag. So that probably saves us about £6 a week on lettuce alone.

2. The Giant Winter Spinach was great, it's just finished so will sow more of that again later this year.

3. The mini pond and the tadpoles are coming along - so I'm not planning to buy organic slug pellets this year, I'm hoping they'll do the job for me.

4. The comfrey patches are thriving. I make three cuts a year, and use it to make compost and to fertilise. I'm hoping that with this and home made compost we won't need to buy anything in any more to add to the compost or enrich the soil. That saves money and effort on transport.

. 6. We've made an effort over the past year to focus on bee friendly plants. These poached egg plants are just the ticket (Limanthes Douglasii). They look really pretty and self-seed - so I won't need to sow them again next year. The Rosemary was useful for bees early in the season and even our sage is flowering (I've just heard you can eat the flowers in a salad, so I'll try that.)

. 7. The asparagus looks fine. We won't be able to start harvesting it until next year, but at that time it will fill the hungry gap in May - when there aren't many vegetables available.

.8. We aim to mulch on a regular basis and try to do so when the soil is warm and it has been raining. (Last weekend it rained a lot, so I was out mulching). There are at least two reasons why this seems to save us time, labour and effort in the long run. Firstly we don't have to water so much. And secondly mulch acts as a weed suppressant so we don't have to weed so much either.

Both of these things are important to us as we don't have much time, and our allotment is quite a journey, so we can't just pop down every evening to check on things.
In this picture you should be able to see three kinds of mulches. We use cocoa shells and/or Strulch (mineralised straw) for crops and wood chip (with cardboard underneath) for the paths. Both of these materials are fairly pricey but Strulch goes a long way. The wood chip is sometimes available free on site. This picture, along with the next one, takes us to some of our:

CONCERNS:

1. Any sort of frost protection tends to blow off. Not being able to go down to the plot as often as we'd like we sometimes get hit by frost damage. These early potatoes will recover, but they're not a pretty sight right now:

2. Still on the subject of potatoes, I'm really not sure whether main crop potatoes are worth the trouble. You need to be so careful to get all of them out of the ground properly and it is so much work to carry them home.

3. I'm still not fond of broad beans! They just don't seem to work for us. Slugs, mice...

What to do in your garden in May

There's lots to do, and not much time to post (due to the fact that I've been away out on the plot actually DOING IT - instead of writing about it!

Still - I'm enclosing this link from Garden Organic which features a month by month break down on what we should all be doing (if we weren't hampered by weather that's colder than we feel it should be) - difficulties in rousing ourselves in the rain...and so on...

I find this page on the Garden Organic site is a great one to come back to, as it reminds me of planting windows, things I might have missed...

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo_now/index.php

Apparently the weather is set to improve for Wednesday and I'm really glad, as I've got a traffic jam in the greenhouse in the courtyard due to the weather - can't move anything out until it warms up and don't want to do the next batch of planting until warmth will ensure my seeds germinate. Still - I'll be in touch with an update in the next few days...

What to plant now

I'm determined not to miss any planting windows this year. So here is a run down of this week's plantings with photos. I've set up a growing system for myself, which I tweak occasionally. Work routines seem to help. So here's what our small courtyard looks like at the moment. Three mini-greenhouses plus a few tables and chairs to raise the pots up a little. We're into our second big phase of planting:

From left to right:

Little gem lettuces in a plug planter, started a month ago. Some of these I'll take to plant out today on the allotment and I'll put a few in the courtyard for the odd sandwich, and in case I can't make it down to the lottie during the week.

1. Wild Rocket ready to plant out - this is a perennial plant so I'm hoping it will save me some work as I won't have to plant it out again every year.
2. Large coir pots with Courgettes (3) to be planted out when they are large enough.
3. Sweetcorn
4. Balconi tomatoes - yellow and red
5. Small pumpkins
6. Lunch box cucumbers (long white paris)
7. Globe Artichokes
8. Two large pots of leeks to plant out in June.
9. Melon
10. Basil
11. Pot of strawberries recovering from their journey through the post.
12. Sugar snap peas
13. Two tomatoes a bit further on
14. Two pots of flowers
15. Pot of calendula
16. Tray of green and gold Orach

In this picture there's calabrese (started off a month ago). Coriander and lettuce seedlings (Lollo Rosso) to be planted out when they are big enough.
Oh, and broad beans in root trainers. They'll go out on the lottie in about ten days, I would think.

Close up of the lettuce seedlings. Best get on down to the lottie. Good weather waits for no man. (Or woman).

New dedicated international organic page at Helium

Big News. Karyn Sparks has just finished building a Certified Organics Zone at Helium and has placed my article "Assessing the success of the organic food movement" on there.

Helium is a web-based writing community which is attracting a huge global audience right now. Hope readers like it and thanks Karyn. It is really good to know that we're a global movement!

Early sowings

As we plant the first plantings of the year: broad beans in succession - carrots, parsnips, little gem lettuces in plug planters - tomatoes - globe artichokes - I'm reminded of all the things that are possible in a small courtyard space.


I haven't cropped this photo (so you can see it really is the view from my kitchen with the reflection of the window). I like to keep things real with kitchen gardening, as you know.

Took the photograph last year in summer I think - the Clematis Montana creeping up the wall there had finished flowering.

You can see my pots of rosemary and bayleaf. Although I planted these out on the allotment as they were getting too big.

There's lavender on the staging too, and lots of little gem lettuces in containers. You can also see my blue builders buckets for larger items.

We even made space for a sand pit table for my daughter (in the middle). When she wasn't playing with it I put the plug planters on top.

This year we've rationalised production quite a bit. We have three greenhouses on the right hand side of the yard now. There's nothing much to see yet - but both the first early potatoes (Lady Christl) and the maincrop potatoes (Golden Wonder) are chitting (sprouting) in these as it's a good frost free place that's not too warm.

I've also started calabrese early in pots.










There's a bit of mould creeping in on the coir pot there. Must nip it off and make sure the greenhouses are well ventilated. My growing system and my work routine seems to be working really well now, touch wood. Seems a lot less work than it was last year.

I raise the plug plants at home, starting them off with a small heated propagator and use a warm windowsill for the plug planters. As soon as the seedlings begin to show I move them out into the mini-greenhouses to carry on growing and start the next batch inside the house.

When the weather warms up I don't need to grow seeds in the house anymore I can just put the plug planters straight into in the greenhouses. It's all done in a pretty small space, but because I keep moving things on in a shift system - it seems to work. Hope you can make use of these ideas.

When the plug plants or seedlings are big enough and the weather is suitable I cycle down to the allotment and plant them out. There are some who say you shouldn't do this with parsnips and carrots, but mine seem to be okay so maybe no-one explained that to them!

I've got a few other nifty ideas that save space. Instead of buying huge bags of compost, I buy dried, compressed, coir bricks with nutrients. You can get these from good garden centres or the Organic Gardening Catalogue. When I need potting compost I just re-hydrate a brick in a bucket of water and off I go.

This year, I've also successfully managed to overwinter some things for an early start. I did wonder whether it was worth the effort but here's a picture of my winter gem and winter density lettuces. I'll be having lettuce with my salad in just a week or two. That's not bad going as it's not even March yet and I don't have a heated greenhouse.

My January seed order

I've decided that less is more as far as buying seeds is concerned. Sifted through the ones I had left from last year - today's careful order avoids wastage and fills in the gaps. After 'chitting' the seed potatoes I'll plant them directly in mid Spring and the rest of the seeds I'll use to raise plug plants destined for those NINE raised beds I mentioned in my last post. So here it is:

1 x seed potatoes LADY CHRISTL 3 kg
2 x potato GOLDEN WONDER 1.5kg
1 x CARROT Chanteney
1 x PARSNIP Cobham Improved Marrow
1 x LETTUCE Little Gem
1 x CUCUMBER Long White Paris
1 x LEEK Monstruso de Carentan
1 x MELON Sweetheart F1
1 x Rocket Wild

£25.22 with a ten per cent 'Garden Organic' membership discount delivered to my door from the ORGANIC GARDENING CATALOGUE: http://www.organicgardeningcatalogue.co.uk/ (postage free for orders over £25)

Three of the vegetables in my order I've grown before. LADY CHRISTL potatoes were delicious, early and a really good yield. Leeks grow well on my heavy clay soil and I like large ones so MONSTRUSO DE CARENTAN fits the job description nicely. LITTLE GEM LETTUCES are sweet and delightful at lunch or any other time!

The rest of the seeds are a bit of an adventure.

I chose GOLDEN WONDER as a main crop potato as I'm hoping the dry, tasty flouriness is good for the homemade shepherd's pies I stuff the freezer with.

COBHAM IMPROVED MARROW parsnips have a built in canker resistance - so I'll let you know if that solves last year's problem.

Early CHANTENEY carrots are short, extremely tasty and because they grow quickly (or so I've heard) are more resistant to carrot fly and more suitable for growing in pots too.

I'm trying out the perennial WILD ROCKET, to see what it tastes like and if it will save me some work as I don't need to re-sow it every two weeks.

I've never grown LONG WHITE PARIS cucumber or SWEETHEART melons before. Now that I have some cloches for outside, I'm hoping this particular experiment will succeed as the cucumbers are just the right size for lunchboxes and melons are such a treat.

The picture shows my plot in April 2008 with some snap-together raised beds. The shed is a former railway workers hut, I think - painted orange for some italian ambience...the couch-grass-path needs a hair cut again...

What are you planning to plant this year?

Looking forward to warmer days but not the hard work of Spring? What are you planning to plant this year? My answer is:
AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.

Here's why: The game plan over the past two years, was to cover as much of my plot as possible with PERENNIAL PLANTINGS. These don't need a lot of tending and I don't need to re-sow them each season.
They're surrounded by a MULCH which cuts down on watering and weeding. I use cocoa shells for the more unusual fruit and veg, and plain old newspapers and wood chip on top for the rest.

Two years ago an ASPARAGUS BED and a PEACH TREE (Avalon Pride) went in. The Asparagus is doing really well - not convinced about the Peach Tree (this is a long story - I'll tell you why I think it is high maintenance in another post).

TWO COMFREY BEDS were established on the edges of the plot. (In case you didn't know organic gardeners use these for fertilising and to speed up the composting process).

BLACKBERRIES, RASPBERRIES, 1 REDCURRANT AND 3 BLACKCURRANTS took up residence in 2007. Followed by A PEAR TREE (Bon Cretien - 2007), ten CHERRY PLUM BUSHES (these provide a windbreak as well as fruit) and RHUBARB (Victoria) in 2008.

In between these plants and near the paths I've made room for some flowers. Last year I allowed my POACHED EGG PLANTS to self-seed, and they're still going strong despite the frost. (see the picture at the top of the page). As well being pretty ground cover these plants encourage hoverfly which prey on aphids and other 'nasties'. I let a few NASTURTIUMS self-seed too, and then there's a couple of lavender and sage plants which will hold up well for at least another season. There's also a little bit of CHAMOMILE which the bees love.


Since the two forty year old apple trees I inherited from a previous owner are still fruiting well, that leaves me with around TWELVE largish raised beds I need to fill each season. Three of these are now home to AUTUMN SOWN ONIONS and GARLIC so that's NINE raised veg beds left I have to plan and play with...

I've got my RAISING-PLUG-PLANTS-IN-SUCCESSION-IN-MINI-GREENHOUSES-SYSTEM set up: (look back at my November post: Developing a Growing System that works for you) - just need to order some seeds now and when that weather turns I'll hit the ground running...

Gardening Resolutions

Having just managed to mortally offend a good friend online, I've come to the probably long overdue conclusion I'm not much good at relationships...

Hope my New Year's Gardening resolutions will fare better. Here are some of them:

• To keep learning (and er...to keep making mistakes)
• To write some mind-blowingly-fantastic and useful gardening blog posts this year(I've already got lots lined up)
• Not to throw any lettuces on the compost heap because I've sown too many
• To enjoy myself

Will post again soon.

War and Peace

Two jobs. Taking time out to plan our family's food future. Listening to the world news.

Not many houses come with a pantry these days, Here's a picture of our simple storage space. Just a few shelves in the corner of a cool room.

I'm nearly ready for Spring now...need to find that box with my anti-war campaign kit in it too. It's that time again.

We stashed last year's harvest in those pretty potato baskets. Garlic, onions, apples. Storing your produce properly can help save time and money.

If the bombs aren't dropping on you.

GAZA.
More than 300 dead. See you on the streets at the protests this weekend? FOLLOW THE LINK: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

Christmas Day Vegetables

After the lights went out around 8.p.m last night due to a fault (no chance of getting anyone out until Boxing Day) and I woke up to a blocked sink I admit Christmas stress started to get to me...

My three year old daughter and her beautiful smile saved the day. Looking at her I feel humbled, she is still totally happy with quite simple things.

Oh and then there's the prospect of fresh organically grown vegetables for Christmas dinner.

What's on the menu?

- A little home grown Giant Winter Spinach.
- Leeks (we have enough to last until February)
- Brussel Sprouts reared in pots
- Fresh Sage for Sage and Onion Stuffing
- Potato Dauphinoise with plenty of home grown garlic from the store

Didn't grow the carrots in the picture, great colour though. Maybe next year.
Enjoy yours and Happy Christmas all.

Don't Dig!

Every autumn on our site I see fellow allotmenteers stumbling up and down the paths, taking a break from their ritual seasonal digging. Usually they're groaning, if not in some sort of physical pain! The question is...

WHY DO THEY DO IT TO THEMSELVES?

Alright, I understand some people LIKE digging. Good luck to them and if they really need the extra exercise, then fine.

But some of the finest organic gardeners like CHARLES DOWDING
http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/ haven't DUG for the past TWENTY FIVE YEARS.

If the NO-DIG approach is good enough for a highly successful organic market gardener like Charles, then it's good enough for me!

Here's how I went about establishing my own no-dig system in brief:

STEP ONE
Using a LOOSEN and LIFT system I removed all the perennial weeds I could find (things like dandelions, nettles and thistles) with a fork.

STEP TWO
I don't intend to DIG OVER my plot ever again now that the majority of these weeds are out. All the evidence I've found (including my own practical experience) tells me that digging can actually INCREASE the rate at which weeds regrow, and it can actually DAMAGE rather than IMPROVE the soil structure. So I now use mulching to keep the weeds down. (I'll come back to this one)

As you can see from previous posts - I'm raising my own plug plants at home to plant out, so I rarely need the 'fine tilth' that mainstream gardening books often speak about. (When the small plants are planted out, they are generally sturdy enough to copy with larger soil particles). In the main I would spend the time having a break - sitting on my deck chair and letting the WORMS do the hard work.

To those who remain sceptics I'd say - spend some time with Charles Dowding's site http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/. Don't knock it until you've tried it and you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble!

Kitchen Garden Trench Composting

Compost is the soul of every organic garden. I set up eight heaps this year, but the black stuff won't be ready until late Spring at the earliest. In the meantime our piles of kitchen peelings are mounting up. Good news...

It's not too late in the year to try kitchen garden trench composting.

You can do this up until Christmas if the weather allows. It is particularly useful for people who might have moved into a new house and lost their top soil (sometimes the builders take it away and sell it) - or for people who need to enrich free draining sandy soil. Kitchen waste is a free resource and come Spring you can plant beans, peas or courgettes on the bed and they will love the enriched and moisture retentive soil.

Here is how I used this technique in a raised bed:

STEP ONE - Dig a trench or hole about one spade deep.
STEP TWO - Collect some kitchen waste - vegetable and fruit matter only please, not including potato peelings - (they sometimes sprout) or cooked waste. I kick start the composting process at home with Bokashi bran - which is really useful to use if you only have a small kitchen. I get mine online along from 'Recycle Now' http://www.recyclenow.com/ along with other reasonably priced composting items (including compost bins) but they should have it in your garden centre.

STEP THREE - Put the waste in the trench. If you have a lot you might need to layer it with more soil.

STEP FOUR - Cover the whole lot with soil. To insulate, (keeps the worms happy) top the lot off with cardboard and something to stop it blowing away.

Sceptics say doing it like this will attract rodents and foxes. Done properly though, it doesn't. The trick is to bury the waste deep enough. If you want to go by the Organic Gardener's 'Bible' check out page 48 of 'The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening'. More about this book on my Amazon store link (click here): http://astore.amazon.co.uk/quesgardtime-21

Fun. With 'Grocery Store Wars'.

To brighten dark November days, I promised you all some fun and here it is:

'GROCERY STORE WARS' by Free Range Studios: ('the freshest socially conscious entertainment on the web').

To see it, click on this link:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hVrIyEu6h_E

or click around the Free Range site:

http://www.freerangestudios.com/ - you'll find lots more good stuff there. Honest.